The clearest relevance
of reification for painting stems from its use in Gestalt psychology from the Berlin school
of the 19th century to describe an object having more spatial
information than is actually present, an idea that translates in today's terminology to: «the
sum is greater
than its
parts.»
«The idea is that if you can combine all this
information about lawyers, law firms and clients in one place, then the whole will be better
than the
sum of its
parts,» Eric Ryles, vice president, customer solutions, ALM Intelligence, told me during a recent conversation.